Class 5: The power of discourse, and incomplete dominations
Christos Zografos, PhD
Institute of Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
czografos@gmail.com
•Power, politics and environmental change
•MA Environmental Humanities 2016-17
•Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

Intro
•Purpose: explain how post-structuralism studies
–The operation of power through discourse
–The limits of power and domination
–
–
•Reason why you should know this: because
–The power of discourse: key approach for understanding how power operates (poststructuralism)
–limits to power-domination are equally important as domination for understanding why and how
environmental change happens
–
•1

Class outline
•Assignment answers
–To see operation of power through discourse
–(but different to other classes: with reading)
–
•Exercise, questions and lecture
–To discuss/ understand the limits of power
•
•
•2

CLASS ASSIGNMENT 2
•
•
•
•According to St. Martin, there is a dominant discourse:
–What is a “discourse”?
–What discourses do?
•St. Martin (2006) explains that “As with past enclosures of common property, the discursive
enclosure clears communities and their associated social/cultural relations from the domain of
economy and produces a resource open to discursive and literal appropriation” (p. 173).
•
•How does that happen?
•
•3

“There is a dominant discourse”
•What is a discourse?
–A body of statements organised in a regular and systemic way (Kendall & Wickham, 1999)
–Barry & Proops, 1999: a narrative, or a way of seeing and talking about something; a worldview
–The language, ideas and values held by disciplines, institutions and society (Munns, 2010)
–
•What discourses do? Munns (2010):
–They produce knowledge
–Expressed through “statements accepted almost unquestionably”
–Which is then used to justify the actions of social institutions
–Discourses produce reality
•4

CLASS ASSIGNMENT 2
•
•
•
•According to St. Martin, there is a dominant discourse:
–What is a “discourse”?
–What discourses do?
•Back to St. Martin:
–What is the name of (does he call) the dominant discourse?
–What does the discourse say?
–What it does?
–How it does it?
–
•St. Martin (2006) explains that “As with past enclosures of common property, the discursive
enclosure clears communities and their associated social/cultural relations from the domain of
economy and produces a resource open to discursive and literal appropriation” (p. 173).
•
•How does that happen?
•
•5

What it says: There is a dominant ‘bio-economics’ discourse that holds that economic dynamic of
fisheries is the domain of fisheries bio-economics
What it does?
-Displaces community from economic dynamic of fisheries
-Encloses fisheries in singular capitalist (private property) hegemonic dynamic
How it does it: ‘Disciplining’ of community: geographic dimension
-Fisheries: in sea vs. Community: inland (where fishers live)
-Ports: place of community vs. Sea (resource): place essential economic dynamic unfolds
-“Community resides on  land while processes of economy are at sea” (p. 178)

“There is a dominant discourse”
•What is the name he gives to that discourse?
–The “bio-economics discourse”
–
•What discourse says:
–The ‘bio-economics’ discourse holds that the economic dynamic of fisheries is the domain of
fisheries bio-economics
•
•6

The bio-economics discourse
•What does the discourse say? The “ontological frame”
•Economic subject: “the fisherman” = utility-seeking economic man (individual)
•Economic space: fishing space = a container of resources available-for-appropriation
•Subject + space: individual, mobile, competitive utility-maximisers (fishermen) work in abstract
space containing quantities of fish (the sea)
–Where fishermen go, with whom, from where: irrelevant
–Economic space: governed by single economic calculus
•7

Importance of discourse: policy interventions
•What it says?
•Loss of economic rent = because there is a deficiency in property relations
–Absence of private property
–
•Common property fisheries (i.e. where community is the owner of the resource)
–Pre-capitalist or not-yet-fully capitalist
–Less efficient and productive
–
•Commons: can only aspire to become capitalist via
–Private property
–Management schemes to stimulate such relations
•8

What does the discourse do?
•Displaces community from economic dynamic of fisheries
•
•Encloses fisheries in singular capitalist (private property) hegemonic dynamic
•
•9

Importance of discourse! Its function
•What it does?
•Academic, governmental, and international organisations have all adopted this vision of fisheries
•…and based on it have:
–designed data collection initiatives
–performed scientific analyses
–developed management strategies
•To justify and advance privatisation of natural resource (fisheries)
•10

How does it do this?
•‘Disciplining’ of community: geographic dimension
–Fisheries: in sea vs. Community: inland (where fishers live)
–Ports: place of community vs. Sea (resource): place essential economic dynamic unfolds
–“Community resides on  land while processes of economy are at sea” (p. 178)
•
•11

Disciplining of community
•“This article is, therefore, an interrogation into the emergence and subsequent disciplining of
community in fisheries resource management” (p.171)
•QUESTION: What does that mean?
–Communities are made obedient (disciplined): not to even think that they may have property rights
in the sea
–Based on ideas of Foucault
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•12

Foucault: exercising power
•Power can be exercised in more subtle ways (than outright oppression)
•i.e. by establishing normalised and ‘deviant’: behaviours (homosexuality), processes (democracy is
inefficient), actions (stealing = crime), persons (lepers=unhealthy), places (Africa is dangerous,
e.g. disease, crime), etc.
•13

Dominant ‘bio-economics’ discourse
•How does discourse disciplines communities? With what mechanisms of power?
•Economic impact analysis
–Assess Econ + Soc impact of FMPs
–Impacts on fishing communities: look recent econ changes
–Measure: gross revenue by region (i.e. in terms of $$) = community health
–“Location of community groups” map: in land
•But what relation with resource?
•
•Social impact analysis
–No connection ports (community residence) – sea (resource site)
–Community: site of impact of decisions taken re: sea (e.g. enclose or not?)
–Community: studied by anthropologists (domain: culture) no implications for NR mngm
–
•Public participation meetings:
–all community issues = struggle over allocation of catch
–community = desires of individuals to increase harvest
–The economic domain (i.e. resource in the sea) remains strongly bounded (enclosed)
•14

Foucault: a geographical approach
•Using EIA, SIA, and public participation meetings
–To establish the bio-economics discourse in order to
–
•To shape the space of fisheries as
–Container of resources available for appropriation
–Space where utility-seeking economic men operate
–
•Disciplines communities
–not to think of the sea/NR as anything else but above
–No other policies, property rights regimes (private)
•15

Post-structual view of power
•Power imposed through discourse/ knowledge
•Through the ‘construction’ of (what it means to be) a resource (e.g. the fisheries), a human group
(e.g. fishermen), a space (periphery of New England), an identity (student)
•
•16

The material result
•“As with past enclosures of common property, the discursive enclosure clears communities and their
associated social/cultural relations from the domain of economy and produces a resource open to
discursive and literal appropriation” (p. 173)
•
•17
•Discursive enclosure: fishermen; community; fishery
•communities
•Socio-cultural relations
>
•Economy
•NR: fishery
•APPROPRIATION (by Kist relations)
•Literal (material)
•Discursive

THE LIMITS OF DOMINATION (POWER)
•Block 2
•18

St. Martin, 2006
•Challenging power
•“To accept communities everywhere, to see them as co-extensive with [= having the same scope as]
the urban and mixed industrial environments of the Northeast (as opposed to only in isolated rural
villages), threatens the dominant discourse” (p.177) [and the privatisation management regime]
•
•
•Questions:
•Are there communities in New England?
•If yes/ no, what does that mean for fisheries management?
•Exercise:
–Get into groups and answer question (can read text)
–Begin: what dominant discourse says about New England communities?
–Is there another way, i.e. apart from the dominant discourse, to find out if there are
communities?
•
•19

ASSUMPTIONS AND POSITIONALITY OF AUTHOR
St. Martin: fisheries are privatised, i.e. their ownership is being given to individuals
•This is what he calls a “capitalist dynamic”, “capitalist relations”, etc.
•Because ‘capitalism’ is an economic system at whose basis is the idea and practice of private
ownership of the means of production (e.g. land, and NR more generally – such as fisheries)
QUESTION: St. Martin thinks this is problematic: why?
•because an alternative ownership regime, common property (different from private and state
property) can be at least equally good ecologically-speaking
•Evidence of this around world where common property regimes have sustained both human and
ecological populations in very fragile and ecologically important environments (e.g. peri-desert
areas in Western Africa)
So, he tries to find out how common property is being made to look irrelevant for NR management

Assumptions and starting points
•St. Martin: fisheries are privatised, i.e. their ownership is being given to individuals
–This is what he calls a “capitalist dynamic”, “capitalist relations”, etc.
–Because ‘capitalism’ is an economic system at whose basis is the idea and practice of private
ownership of the means of production (e.g. land, and NR more generally – such as fisheries)
•QUESTION: St. Martin thinks this is problematic: why?
–because an alternative ownership regime, common property (different from private and state
property) can be at least equally good ecologically-speaking
–Evidence of this around world where common property regimes have sustained both human and
ecological populations in very fragile and ecologically important environments (e.g. peri-desert
areas in Western Africa)
•So, he tries to find out how common property is being made to look irrelevant for NR management
•20

Back to fisheries in New England
•Dominant discourse: where can you find “fishing communities”?
–‘Fishing communities’ exist only in developing, pre-capitalist places
–In a developed country such as the USA, they may only exist in peripheral places such as rural
Alaska
•21
•Fishing community at Kazinga, Uganda
James Brown (Source: http://www.new-ag.info)
•Akutan in the Aleutian islands (source: http://jacobimages.photoshelter.com)

Back to fisheries in New England
•Fishing communities don’t exist in mixed industrial environments of New England
–These are not “traditional”, pre-capitalist environments
–To be heavily dependent upon fisheries
•There:
–More (and industrial) economic activities take place: mixed industrial & fisheries
–You only have some individuals fishing
–Communities are in land
–Commons rights to sea: unthinkable of
•22
•Source: photographersdirect.com
•Source: http://esteveporfolio.blogspot.com

But,
•St. Martin tells us:
–Wait a minute
–If you look closely, you will realise that fishing communities also exist in mixed, industrialised
spaces such as New England!
•QUESTION: How does he find out this?
–Mapping of communities in the sea
•23

Shaping of community space: where is community constituted (St. Martin, 2006)?
•In land: New England Fishery Management Council, 2001
•In the sea: GIS map of community presence in sea by port of origin
•Map 1: community in land (only individuals fishing in the sea)
•Map 2: community in the sea (fishing trips by port of origin)
•24

Shaping of community space: where is community constituted (St. Martin, 2006)?
•In land: New England Fishery Management Council, 2001
•In the sea: GIS map of community presence in sea by port of origin
•Mapping exercise: places communities “back in the map” as potential NR owners: it maps community
back in the sea resource
•Fisheries: de facto commons, because people of same community reproduce community via space they
use + practices of reciprocity in sea
•Maps: technologies of imposing and negotiating power
•25
•Q: What does his mapping exercise achieve?

Spaces of opportunity
•Mixed industrialised environment of New England
–Not worthless, spaces where tradition has been dominated by modernity
–Neither modern nor traditional
•Mix/ hybridity = evidence that capitalism/ modern state domination project = incomplete!
–Space where pre-modern, alternative NR management regimes (commons) are still possible
–State attempts to establish modern (bio-econs) regimes based upon presenting fisheries as spaces
of private econ activity, community as sites of management impact, etc. through policies, events
(e.g. participation) and documents are still unfinished/ unsuccessful
•26
•Copyright: Matt Wickenheiser | BDN (source: http://bangordailynews.com)

Studying power: the post-structuralist way
•Study ways in which social groups, resources, and spaces are constituted/ shaped (Paulson et al.,
2005)
•
•How does power operate?
–Where is power ‘located’/ operates: inside ‘the subject’
–Power forms ‘the subject’ from inside, through rules (s)he voluntarily follows, even whose
application by others (s)he monitors
–Robbins (2007): US suburbs ‘lawn people’ voluntarily contaminating environment and themselves
while complying to rule/ image of “good citizen”
–
•How can power be challenged (a main way)?
–Study places, resources, spaces, communities
–not for domination, but for diversity and as spaces of opportunity
–E.g. where pre-capitalist/ modern elements (e.g. community) still exist!
•27